Igor speaks

A couple of weeks ago, I had my fourth lesson with Igor Foygel. In our first three lessons, he had some comments about the games we went over, but mostly he asked questions and didn’t say too much. In this last lesson, though, he was ready to tell me what he thought about my play. I took notes as fast as I could.

His first comment was that chess is a science only at home, during study. In competition, he’d like to see me be more relaxed, not so rigid.

I hesitate way too much in strategic positions that do not call for calculation. When confronted with a fork in the road, and with no clear way to decide which way is best, I take much too long to choose a move. “Stop hesitating and make a decision,” Igor said. (A certain famous Yogi Berra quote come to mind.)

Igor said I seemed to lack the killer instinct. Then he amended this comment to say that I don’t recognize positions that call for a strong punch. He quoted Steinitz – if you have the advantage you must attack, or the advantage will dissipate.

Tactically, Igor thinks I’m in pretty good shape. He encouraged me to spend time studying tactics from the easier books and software, using a lot of repetition. “It’s the easy tactics we miss most.” He wasn’t that enthusiastic about CT-ART, because many of its problems are good only for those above 2000.

For improved attacking ability and killer instinct, he recommended that I study the annotated game books of Alekhine and Tal. He said Alekhine had a really good feel for when to punish opponents, and his handling of initiative was phenomenal. I asked him how I should read annotated game books, and said that I often did it in bed, following the moves on my PDA. He understood my difficulty in finding “quality” study time, but he prefers that I play over annotated games using a real board. For 15-30 minutes in bed, studying tactics problems would be better.

Strategy was a weak spot identified in my scores in Khmelnitsky’s exam book, so he recommended reading Bronstein’s book on the 1953 Zurich International Chess Tournament, which I have.

Regarding openings, he thought most of my choices were reasonable, and he actually discouraged me from changing my openings just because of his comments. He said people underestimate how much time it takes to switch openings effectively, and this time is better spent on other kinds of chess study.

Still, he did think I should spend more time studying the openings I do play, especially from the Black side of the board. He was surprised that I was taking so much time making opening moves very early in the game. He wants me to start with an opening book that is “wordy” – that is, one that emphasizes discussion of ideas, rather than lots of variation. Get a feel for typical motifs that pop up. Then go slowly over 3-5 well annotated games. Finally, play fast games (even blitz games) against a computer in the opening, using some kind of handicap mode. (I find the opening training feature of Fritz 9 to be pretty helpful for this.) He felt that 4-5 hours of study for each opening would prepare me reasonably well. Then continuing to review my notes each month, and continuing to play practice games against the computer, would keep the ideas and moves fresh in my mind.

One of his last comments was – Do you realize that you have chosen a very stressful hobby?